Want to learn to cook.

[Butuz]

I love food. But i cant cook for toffee! Well i can make a mean fry up but thats as far as it goes.

Anyone know any good things to cook that are relativley simple to start of with - but damn tasty? I figured if i can learn to tune up turbocharged cars, i should really be able to cook a meal for a lady

Butuz

[Moby-Dick]

not even a half decent spag bol ?

[Flibb]

I was just about to suggest that as well. Just searched googlr for a recipe and a hexus thread popped up.

Good spaghetti bolognese recipe?

[Butuz]

Mmm drool

Methinks i will be spending alot more time in this here forum

Butuz

[Flibb]

Ahhh I hate you, was just about to go to bed now my stomachs rumbling. Worst of all I just spotted the steak sandwich thread.

Flibb drowns in his own dribble

[Norky]

I got the Wagamama cookbook for my birthday, I'd never cooked in my life but it came with a free howto dvd

[Flibb]

Just had a bit of toast to fight of the rumblings. although the bit of steak in the fridge was winking at me.

Anyway just to add some late night ramblings
I do just about all the cooking at home for me and the wife, and have done for the six years we have lived together. Over that time I have found that 2 modes of cooking exist for me

1) Make an effort cooking. Often found to happen on a Saturday or Sunday, results would be Sunday roast, from scratch spag bol, lasagna, proper curry, things made up involving chicken or duck or something interesting looking from the shops.

2) Get home from work cooking. Happens most working days, cooking will take around 30 minutes max, most of which will actually be spent chatting to mates on msm, just giving stuff in the kitchen th odd poke or stir. Results from this are often stir fry (quick noodles are great), pasts (jars of sauce), quick steaks with salad, fajitas with salad (again with a jar/ packet of sauce), curry, etc. But will also do minute steak with stilton cheese topping and salad and a hot ciabatta, a variety of salads, sausages, just simple quick stuff really.

One problem I have is that Claire doesn't eat spuds or many cooked vegetables, so many easy meals are off limits. But we dont buy any heat and serve type stuff apart from a pizza once a fortnight, instead we might buy one of those plastic bags of curry sauce, the Thai one from sainsburys is great, doesn't take any effort to cook, tastes and smells incredible.

[Rave]

I made my signature dish tonight for my wife, her cousin and her aunt. It goes like this:

Ingredients:

1 chicken breast per person
2-3 back bacon rashers per person
200g tub of garlic and herb soft cheese (costs 44p from Tesco)
wine, dried bay leaves and herbs to taste.

So: plonk the chicken breasts on a chopping board. Take a sharp knife and do your best to slice a hole in the side of them so they're 'butterflied'. Open them up, and put about 50g of the cream cheese inside the breast, then fold them over so the cheese is sealed inside. Then grab some rashers of bacon and competely wrap the breasts up in them (in my experience you'll need 2-3 depending on the size). Put them in a lightly greased baking tray (to stop them sticking) and chuck in some bay leaves. Finally, splash in some white wine (a small glass) over them. Wrap foil over the whole caboodle tightly enough that steam can't escape easily. They'll take about 50 minutes in an oven at about ~190C.

Tonight I served them up with some roasted veg, which comprised:

Courgettes
Green and red peppers
Red Onion

....chopped up and bunged in a baking tray with some herbs and a sprinkling of olive oil. They took about 35 minutes. Finally, to bulk it out I mashed up some boiled spuds with the remainder of the cream cheese- although mixing in wholegrain mustard makes them just as tasty. The 'juice' from the chicken breasts poured over the mash moistened it up a treat.

Cooking tasty meals is, though I say it myself, a piece of cake. The real challenge is synchronising everything to be ready at the same time- and that just takes practice (I'm getting there)

[Rave]

P.S. in the space of about a year I've gone from being a complete amateur in the kitchen to being such a food fascist that I insist on cooking everything now. My wife is a great cook- but she's just not quite precise enough for me. I end up taking over all of our meals. Beware, cooking is seriously addictive.

[0iD]

My fave easy dish:
4-6 balls of Tagiatelle
6-9 desert spoons of fresh natural yogart or creme fresh
2 rashers of bacon
4 anchovy fillets
4 mushrooms
4 spring onions.
Fresh ground Black Pepper & Sea Salt
Fresh Parmesan

In a dry non stick pan fry the bacon till it's overdone & crispy. Then set aside.
Put the pasta in boiling water
In the frying pan put the chopped mushrooms & spring onions with a little olive oil. Cook until soft.
Once the pasta is done, drain & return to the pan.
Chop the bacon & anchovy fillets & sprinkle over the warm pasta
add the spring onions, mushrooms & yogart & stir thro
Season with salt & pepper to taste
put into bowls & top off with fresh grated parmesan

Couple of bits of watercress to garnish & one very quick & easy meal. If you're feeling flush then use pancheta instead of bacon. It's all good